The Foundation was registered on December 17, 1980 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Benguet Corporation Foundation, Inc. that served as the “social arm” of Benguet Corporation. In 1997, it became financially independent from Benguet Corporation and was renamed as Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation, Inc., in honor of the first Filipino President of the Corporation. (Since then, the Foundation ceased to be a corporate foundation. It is not also a family foundation.) Its main office is currently located in 288 East Kennon Road, Camp 7, Baguio City and programs are implemented in Baguio and selected municipalities in Benguet, Ilocos, Mindoro, Cagayan de Oro and Zambales.
Its purposes among others, are “to be resilient communities nurturing their environmental capital, harnessing their spirit of cooperation and enterprise, helping alleviate poverty and ensuring a legacy of sustainability for future generations; to be guided by the principle of holistic development, to help communities build their capacity to uplift their quality of life, through programs that preserve ecological integrity and enable access to economic resources; and to strengthen the capacity of the Foundation to generate and track resources”. The foundation’s programs focused on the following: 1) Ecological Enhancement (environment protection, advocacy); 2) Enterprise Development (training); 3) Resource Generation and Management; and 4) Special Projects (HEED: Health, Education, Environment & Disaster Response; Anti-Child Labor Program & other short-term projects). The Micro-finance program was already spun-off to Jaime V. Ongpin Micro-Finance Foundation, Inc. last June 2017.
